They gathered silently, and people threw flowers into the boat until it was full. Ev used a chantment Will had given him to send the boat on its way. Everyone in the crowd gave up a little of their vitality, as a thank-you.
After it had vanished from view, they dug clams, made a bonfire, and danced until the tide went out. It was late when Ev walked Patience to her tent.
He didn’t stay. His transformation was too far gone, and he was more goat than man. Olive kept healing him, pushing the insanity back, but Everett Burke was lurking.
“Take care, old man,” Patience said, kissing his forehead between the horns.
Tipping a hat he wasn’t wearing, Ev strolled away.
He prowled the camp, listening to the snores and barks of the contaminated, the rush of the sea. Sand slid underfoot. Without a mailbag on his hip, his gait felt unbalanced.
He heard something—scuttling.
Ev followed the sound, rapid tip-tapping footsteps with—so said his detective’s instincts—a furtive tone to them. They came from the camp’s improvised compost pit, and as he neared it, he heard clicks and gabbles.
Starlings.
A shaft of moonlight broke through the clouds, revealing hunter and quarry to each other. It was a woman. Short, stocky, and pale, she was clad in feathers and surrounded by flint-eyed birds. She had Sahara’s hair and talons, and he’d caught her filching half-eaten corn cobs from the pile.
One of the Alchemites’ blood sacrifices, Ev deduced: a contaminated believer who thinks she’s Sahara Knax.
His gut clenched as he thought of the children of Indigo Springs—Mark, Jacks, Sahara, and Astrid herself. All gone.
“Do you still like pickles?” he asked her, on impulse. “I could scare some up.”
It wasn’t much of a peace offering, was it? Apparently not enough—the woman scuttled into the night, chirping.
Ev was about to follow, when something shifted under his skin. Heat washed through him, an unpleasant reminder of menopause. For a second, he thought he might vomit. Then the fuzziness that had blanketed him since Albert’s death—the mulishness, the lost sense of himself, even Burke’s sense of drama—dropped away.
Ev was himself, truly himself, for the first time in his life.
The rosarite band around his forearm quivered, then broke, falling in shivers to the sand. A second later, the goat horns fell too, leaving his forehead exposed and raw.
Across the camp, the Roused were crying out as their bodies shifted and became human.
Patience was out of her tent, calling for him. “It’s the curse! Astrid must have broken it.”
“Wasn’t me,” came a voice: Astrid’s otter-ringer put up her head. “Olive put that marshal, Juanita, on it.”
“A woman will break the curse,” Ev said. “All this time, I thought it was you or Patience.”
“I can’t be responsible for every little thing, can I?”
“’Bout time you learned that.” Ev clapped the ringer on the shoulder, nearly knocking it over. “What now?”
“Anything you want,” Astrid said. “Will and I are rebuilding Pucker—”
A triumphant, inhuman shriek interrupted her.
Unlike the others, who were molting their feathers and shedding their fur, rubbing off their reptile scales to reveal human flesh beneath, Teoquan was growing. He stood flat-footed on the ocean, becoming bigger and bigger, a giant. His red skin became crimson. Colors shifted beneath it, and Ev was briefly reminded of an octopus.
Then with a howl, he was gone, rising to the clouds, staining water and sky alike with bloody color.
“What in the name of Sam was that?” Ev demanded.
“T’axet,” Patience said. “Haida God of violent death.”
“You knew?”
“I charmed it out of him one day.”
“A god? How?”
“The curse turned the infected into lower forms of life. Humans became animals, animals devolved. Gods…”
“Became human?”
“Human-ish, anyway.”
“Violent death? What’s he going to do now that he’s freed?”
“Relax, Ev,” Patience said. “T’axet’s a duality. Everyone’s loose now, all the gods. His better half should turn up soon. Or he’ll deify some nice girl and settle down.”
“I’m not following you,” Astrid said.
“There’s a goddess of peaceful death. She’ll balance him out.”
“How many Native gods did the Small Bang release?” Ev asked.
“World’s changed, Ev: we all have to adjust,” Patience said. “But remember what you said to your kid? Teo’s not your problem. Really, he never was.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
THE FOLLOWING MORNING AT about sunrise, a squad of Ukrainian soldiers did a sweep through Pripet. Their captain was a stolid, sensible-seeming fellow, and he recognized Juanita from the broadcasts of Sahara’s trial. When he offered to take Gilead off her hands, she agreed readily—what else was she going to do with him? If the various magicians or the American government decided they wanted him, they could extradite. In the meantime, Ukrainian jail was as good a place as she could think of for a murderer.
She packed away Gilead’s book of Fyreman prophecies and his last two potions and hitched a ride south to Kiev, keeping her eyes peeled for blackberry archways that never materialized. A refugee camp came together outside the city: she bartered her first aid skills for a bed, shower, and a meal.
There were English and Spanish speakers among the displaced, and she was able to glean bits of news. The magical cloud had spread worldwide. Plants and animals were changing, but less dramatically—everything seemed less violent, less dangerous. People weren’t turning into beasts anymore.
There had been earthquakes and tornadoes and fires, rains of spiders, stampedes by giant monsters and chemical spills, but many of these stories had the same happy ending. The danger had manifested … and then someone had stepped forward, armed with magic, prepared to blunt its effects. Dozens of Astrid’s volunteers and more than a few Alchemites had died in the rescues. Others survived, along with the people they’d sheltered.
A dozen versions of what had happened that last day in Indigo Springs were spreading.
Lethewood saved us, Juanita thought. I wish she’d lived long enough to know.
That night, in dreams, she found her brother. He had abandoned the perpetual beach party and was queued in a long line of servicemen, journalists, and lapsed Alchemites who were moving through the endless, improbable lobby of a mostly Victorian dream-house. He lit up when he saw her.
“Nita!” He opened his arms.
She bounded into the embrace, fighting, as always, to be the one who lifted him. They tussled and then, dreams being dreams, ended up afloat above the pink flowered carpet.
“Gracias a Diosque estás salvada!”
“You been worried about me?” She laughed.
“Folks here talk,” he replied. “Terrible things happening, disasters, our families … there’s a thousand horror stories.”
“It hasn’t been as bad as it probably sounds,” she said.
“It sounds horrific, Nita. I haven’t seen anyone.…”
“What? Mamá, Lucinda, nobody?”
“Nobody.”
The jolt of fear was enough to bounce her out of sleep. She rolled over, groping for her threadbare blanket, and caught a gabble of excited voices outside her tent.
“What’s going on?” She went outside.
“Kiev airport is reopening,” one of the other refugees told her. “We’re packing up.”
She said a quick good-bye to the head of the infirmary and joined the clot of foreigners trudging out to the terminal to see if it was true, if they could fly home.
She had gone only a few miles when someone walked up beside her: Astrid Lethewood.
Juanita stopped short—so fast, she almost fell.
“I startle you?” Astrid said.
“Depends. Am I still
asleep?”
“Nope.”
“I saw you die.”
“I died,” Astrid agreed. “Think of me as a kind of robust ghost.”
“Robust?”
“Tough? Juicy? Potent?”
“You want to cut right to virile?”
“I’m not flirting this time, honest.”
“Good, because I definitely don’t date dead magicians.”
“I still sort of have something going with Will Forest.”
“Still only sort of?”
That got a rueful grin from Astrid. “We’re a sorry pair, you and I.”
“Sorry you died, anyway,” Juanita said, deflecting. “So … you know what happened to Sahara?”
“You did the right thing. She would have killed everyone on the platform.”
“I wasn’t expecting hell to break loose afterwards.”
“Boy, do I know what that’s like,” Astrid said. “Poor Sahara.”
Juanita said, “You’re very forgiving, aren’t you?”
“I can afford to be. I won, remember?”
“Did you? You’re dead.”
“Dead-ish, yeah, but lots of other people made it.”
“Silver linings, huh?”
“My dad was always big on looking for the upside. Besides, you forgave Sahara too, in your way.”
She hadn’t considered it. “I suppose I may have.”
Refugees were sliding glances their way—everyone must know who Astrid was. “Any chance you’ll get that gate thing of yours up and running soon?”
“The Roused took it over,” Astrid said. “They’ve negotiated deals with a bunch of governments, including the one here. There’s a gate at the airport. You can take it where you like.”
“They want money?”
“They will, once the crisis is over. But you should ask them for a lifetime pass.”
“Why, because you find me cute?”
“You are cute, but also because you broke the curse.”
“Befoulment,” Juanita corrected.
“That makes you a hero. So, where are you going first?”
“Home, where else?”
“Where else?” Astrid nodded. “I’m serious, you know. The Roused owe you—and they aren’t the only ones.”
“My brother’s still caught in dreams.”
“That gate’s opening now.”
“How’s that work? Dreams are just another place?”
There was a pause, the look she’d come to associate with Astrid looking up information elsewhere. “The science guys are debating that one.”
“Maybe it’s a spiritual question.”
Astrid frowned, not getting it.
“Not a scientific matter,” Juanita prompted.
“Oh.” Astrid shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”
“If you don’t mind my saying…,” Juanita said.
“Say anything you want.”
“Ignoring the sacred wasn’t necessarily the smartest choice you made. Treating magic like technology … it’s not right. It’s not … whole.”
“You want to be my spiritual adviser?”
“I’m not qualified. Besides, would you even want one?”
“Why not?” Astrid said. “Go check on your family. Think things over, and let me know if you reach any conclusions.”
She was right, Juanita thought. She’d see Mamá and make it right with the judge, if she could.
Oh, and there’s a little matter of figuring out what to do with the rest of my life.
It seemed wrong that after so much had happened, she still had to tussle with that one.
Her hand brushed Gilead’s book. Spiritual questions.
The Kiev airport had been reorganized around one airplane hangar whose big doors had become a massive gateway. The gate wasn’t made of thorns anymore, but a mixture of woods and stone, adorned with carvings and pictographs, symbols from a hundred cultures. Two queues—one of vehicles, one of people on foot—were inching toward the gate through improvised checkpoints. The guards were checking for weapons and scanning passports, but they weren’t looking for hassles and were only too happy to send any foreigners home.
As soon as someone recognized Juanita as the American girl from the famous trial, they waved her through.
“I suppose all this will get normalized soon.”
“Visas and immunizations and travel restrictions,” Astrid agreed. “Business as usual.”
“So the old world’s not completely dead.”
“No deader than me.”
“I’m not sure that’s funny,” Juanita told her.
“When you decide, let me know.”
People who’d made it through security tended to pause at the threshold of the gate, daunted by the cold air and blue glow. Juanita stepped through without hesitation.
She found herself at the bottom of a steep gorge walled by blue stone. Trucks and cars were rumbling downhill, lining up to pass through another checkpoint—this one staffed by Native Americans wielding magical items—at the exit. The line of pedestrians wound alongside the road.
Will Forest was waiting for her. “Going back to Reno?”
She nodded. “Find your kids?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good, I’m glad.”
“Anytime you want to talk, call Astrid’s name.”
“I just want news of my family, Forest.”
“That part of Nevada had some sandstorms, nothing too serious. Casualties in Reno were light.” He walked her past the checkpoint, to the glow. “Think about where you want to be.”
“No place like home, huh?” she said, stepping out into her mother’s backyard.
She bolted up to the kitchen door, almost tripping over a profusion of children’s toys. For a second, she thought the door might be locked, but no—it had always been sticky. She shoved it open. “Mamá?”
No answer.
Heart in her mouth, she poked through the house. It was obvious Lucinda was living here with the children again, obvious too that the family had not been gone long—there was a half-gnawed cracker with a smear of yellow fruit on it aging on the counter. The smell of stale banana filled the air.
They were okay. She could wait.
She checked the card drawer. If any of her brothers had died while she was out of touch, the telegram from the army and the sympathy cards would be there.
Mamá’s church earrings were gone.
She picked up the phone, got a dial tone, and tried Lucinda’s cell. It went to voice mail. Which meant nothing, with so many towers down.
She dropped her bag, and went to rinse her face. The water was off, and a basin by the sink filled with tepid water was the best she could do. She washed up carefully: it felt important to look her best.
Once she was satisfied with her appearance, she set out down the empty streets. None of the houses seemed badly damaged. She saw a collapsed deck here, a fallen tree there, lots of broken windows.
Her feet brought her to her old church. As she climbed the steps, she heard singing, a full house from the sounds of it. She opened the doors, thinking to slip in unnoticed, lay eyes on her family, and get out without a fuss.
Instead she collided with a young mother who’d retreated to the foyer to soothe her baby. The kid screeched; heads turned.
Juanita flushed. Her eye fell on a banner behind the pulpit: SERVICE FOR THE MISSING.
Great. She might as well have interrupted her own funeral.
Mamá cried out, running up the aisle, suffocating Juanita in her arms.
“Sorry, Mamá,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“I wasn’t worried, baby. You’re not on the list.”
“No?”
“I knew you were alive,” Mamá said, and there, in the rising heat, amid the crush of family, Juanita felt something powerful rising within her, a commingling of joy and strength.
“Come on,” she said to her mother. “Let’s find a seat.”
C
HAPTER FIFTY-TWO
WITHIN A MONTH OF Boomsday—Astrid had never been able to sell anyone on “Small Bang”—Indigo Crater and the forest around it had, unofficially at least, become an independent territory governed by the Roused.
The rush of vitagua into the real had brought debris with it—hundreds of tons of the gritty dirt that had lain under the glaciers. It had blown from the Chimney, carving the crater, and coalesced at its edge into a crag with sharp slopes and a jagged peak. Observers likened it to a snapped femur; people were calling it Blue Bone.
If anything remained of Indigo Springs, it was entombed beneath the mountain.
The Roused had been quick to exploit their monopoly on gate travel, making deals with individual airport authorities worldwide. Participating countries got gates: in return, the Roused agreed to follow international law as they moved people from place to place. Passports were stamped, visas checked, fees and duties paid.
Business as usual.
Arthur Roche and two aides came through the Blue Bone Welcome Center on a Wednesday morning. It was a shock, seeing him again: Astrid still thought of Roche as a petty tyrant who’d jailed her. But as he and Will shook hands, they exchanged a long look—of understanding, miles traveled together, old fights resolved … and she found the animosity slipping away.
He’d been through a lot, she realized, and he had less say in it than most of them.
“Welcome,” she made herself say, and found she meant it.
He gave her the usual curt nod. “Am I the last one here?”
Will shook his head. “We’re waiting on the Fyrefolk.”
They escorted the government delegation to a sun-dappled meadow dotted with seats—stumps, rocks, a few proper chairs. Letrico boulders lay in the grass, and sunshine trickled down through a screen of leaves. Astrid settled on a mossy stump.
“This is your conference room?” Roche murmured to Will.
Will’s hands moved, and the general laughed.
“I didn’t know you knew sign language,” Astrid said.
Will shrugged.
“He learned when I lost my hearing,” Roche said.
The meadow was already occupied by representatives from other stakeholders: Patience’s firebrand niece, Lilla Skye, was there speaking for non-Roused aboriginal interests, Jupiter for the Indigo Springs volunteers, many of whom were wanted for terrorism and war crimes. A trio of Roused—a warrior, an elder, and a Two-Spirited shaman, waited in the shade of an elm tree. The United Nations had sent an observer, which made everything seem shockingly important and official. There was also a camera crew.
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